JAMES FORREST has warned Celtic are fired up to sink Sion and silence the critics who have been too quick to judge them after their recent stutter.

The Scotland winger flies out to Switzerland with the rest of Neil Lennon’s squad today and is determined that their Europa League dream won’t die in the Tourbillon Stadium tomorrow night.

The Hoops have come in for massive criticism after they were held to a goal-less draw by Sion in the home leg and then followed that up by losing against St Johnstone, who up to that point had still to score a goal in the SPL.

Forrest knows those set-backs have piled on the pressure but has insisted they have only lost one game and they can get their season back on track by seeing off Sion and getting into the high-profile group stages.

“It is a two-legged competition.“You can’t say bad things about us after one game. We will be looking to put on a better showing and to go through after the second leg.

It is a two-legged competition

James Forrest

"We’ve got the clean sheet and that is a positive. Hopefully we can go out on Thursday and get the away goal we need. There is pressure in every European game but we have good players at Celtic and we can handle it.

"We go into this second leg confident we can get a result.”

Celtic have drawn blanks in their last two outings and that has been at the heart of their recent problems. The 20-year-old, who came off the bench in the first game again Sion, knows it is up to the likes of him, Kris Commons, Shaun Maloney and Paddy McCourt to keep creating chances for their struggling frontmen, like Georgios Samaras and Anthony Stokes.

Forrest expects Sion to try and shut-up shop again but isn’t overly concerned if they adopt that approach again explaining “I think you saw in the first game that they were happy to sit in but we are not going to look into what they are going to do. As far as I am concerned it is all about us.

“They defended well in the first game but we are not looking at them at all. If we play well then we know we will go through.

"If we score early doors then we have the advantage but we will see what happens on Thursday. I am confident because we have some great attacking players here.

"We also had chances in the first game but we just didn’t score. But I believe we can go out and score a few on Thursday night.”

Forrest knows that the clash with the Swiss is the ideal chance to put Celtic’s poor away record to bed and look ahead to a bright new assault on Europe’s elite.

“It definitely is an opportunity,” the Celtic youngster insisted. “As I said I feel we have the players to get through. I was coming through ranks and our record was poor then as well but hopefully we can put that right this time.“